


the perfect gift for me would be

by dansunedisco



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: All The Tropes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Confessions, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Modern Era, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 01:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9101251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansunedisco/pseuds/dansunedisco
Summary: “Be my boyfriend,” Sansa says. Jon's eyebrows raise, and she amends, “My fake boyfriend."-Sansa, Jon, and fake dating for the winter holidays.





	

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks for [maybetwice](https://maybetwice.tumblr.com/) for beta'ing this! <3
> 
> -
> 
> title from christmas wrapping by the waitresses :)

Sansa calls Arya as soon as the guest list lands in her inbox. She is horrified. Her mother’s invited damn near the entire town and the seating chart is _madness._ “She’s invited the _Boltons_ \-- Roose and Walda and his creepy son -- and she stuck Janos Bracken at the table _right next to_ Tytos Blackwood!”

“Oh _no..._ anything but that,” Arya drones back.

“Be serious! You know Janos and Tytos hate each other more than -- oh, I can’t even make a good comparison. I’m frazzled. This is very unlike our mother.” She scrolls through the list again, biting her thumbnail; a nervous habit she hasn’t been able to shake since Catelyn Stark decided to bring Sansa into the festive fold this year. All was well… until now.

“Maybe she’s trying to mend fences.” 

“What, by enabling a fistfight by the punch bowl?”

“Free entertainment!” 

“You very well know we have the carolers coming from the winter town… as we do _every year._ ”

“Sansa, what do you expect me to do?”

“Just look at the list mom sent us and tell me I’m not crazy.” 

“Fine. You owe me. I could literally be doing anything else. I’d _rather_ be doing anything else.” Sansa hears shuffling on the other end, and Arya’s old laptop booting up. Arya hums here and there, and then she takes a breath… and starts laughing. “ _Sansa._ Forget the Blackwoods and Brackens. Did you pay attention to where mother put _you_?” 

“Well, no. I’m always at the table with you and the rest of the kids.”

“Not this year. Look… and then look at who’s all around you.”

Sansa toggles back to the file. Robb and Jeyne and the new baby are in the corner with Jon and his friend Sam Tarly and Sam’s girlfriend, Gilly. Then there’s the usual Stark kids table: Arya, Gendry, Rickon, Bran, Lyanna Mormont… but no Sansa. She’s been stuck across the room with Karyl Vance, Lyman Darry, Smalljon Umber, Patrek Mallister, and Torrhen and Eddard Karstark. None of them have anything in common, really… except for one thing. Last she checked, they were all eligible bachelors. “Oh, _god._ ”

Arya cackles.

“This isn’t funny!” 

“It’s a little funny.”

“Arya! Oooh, what is mom thinking?”

“That you’ve been single for a while now? Blame Robb for her grandbaby fever, not me.”

Sansa palms her forehead. She has been unattached for the better part of the year, and for good reason. Her track record with men has been abysmal (Joffrey Baratheon, Harry Hardyng -- both of them golden-haired, handsome douchebags -- to name the worst two). Other than a _thing_ with Arianne  Martell over the summer that ended before it ever really started, she’s been free and happy to be. Truly, her dating sabbatical was self-imposed and sorely needed.

“What’s the big deal?” Arya breaks in. “Just ask her to move you.”

She nearly snorts. “Have I taught you nothing? Putting me with every free man in the north isn’t subtle… I’d bet you anything she’s drinking coffee as we speak, waiting for my harried phone call, and she will only be all too happy to drop me with someone else. Someone she _really_ wants me to meet.”

Arya sighs. “In the game of seating charts, you win... or you dine with annoying people.”

 

-

 

The plan to outwit her own mother hatches quickly, and Sansa almost pats herself on the back when it comes to her. Catelyn Stark is well-known for her planning, her cunning, and her impeccable matchmaking ability. But making a match when someone is already taken is pointless, right? She needs a fake date, and she needs one _fast._ The Starks’ winter get-together is a weekend-long affair, and there’s only one person who fits Sansa’s criteria on such short notice. Jon Snow.

“You want me to _what?_ ” he asks.

The coffee shop around them is packed, stuffed full with holiday shoppers, and he and Sansa are squeezed together by the table in the back. He looks good, she thinks; his hair’s grown out, and the beard is a nice touch. If she weren’t on a dating-pause, maybe… She shakes the thought away. _This is a mission, not a date!_

“Be my boyfriend,” she says. His eyebrows raise, and she amends, “My _fake_ boyfriend. My mom is trying to hook me up with someone at the winter dinner, I just know it, and I’m… done with dating. For a bit.”

He looks down at his coffee, his dark eyes unreadable. After a tense moment, he scrubs at the back of his neck and says, “Alright.” 

Sansa has a hundred excuses on the tip of her tongue, ready to be unleashed to plead her case, but Jon’s acceptance, however reluctant it seems to be, throws her for a loop. “Oh,” she breathes. She smiles, if a bit awkwardly. “Perfect! I’ll call my mom and let her know straightaway. We can drive up together if you’d like, saves on gas and parking is always atrocious--” 

They plan out the whole thing over coffee: They bumped into one another in King’s Landing randomly (which is true), met up a few times (also true), and have been dating for a few months (a big, fat lie). They didn’t tell the family because their relationship is so new -- not to mention the heaps of shared history between them.

“I didn’t want to make anything weird at dinner… if it didn’t work out,” Sansa tells her mother that evening. The lies should taste sour on her tongue, but they flow forth easily. _Yes, I’m dating Jon Snow. Yes, I really like him and I know I should’ve told you sooner._ “I’m sorry you have to shuffle me around. Maybe Jeyne Poole can take my place?”

Her mother hums. “There _is_ room at Robb’s table for you… as long as Jeyne doesn’t mind.”

“I don’t see why she would!” Jeyne’s been as single as Sansa since she broke it off with Beric Dondarrion over a clash of ideology, and she always got on with Patrek. _Maybe matchmaking is in my blood, too._ “I’ll call her and let her know so you don’t have to.” 

Her mother thanks her and the conversation soon segues into decorations for the Great Hall. Sansa puts the tiny niggle of doubt behind her -- a fake date is better than no date -- and sends Jon a text to let him know their plan worked.

 

-

 

A month later, Sansa and Jon drive to Winterfell together. Sansa takes the first leg while Jon sleeps -- he’s just come off the night shift and doesn’t argue when Sansa tells him to nod off -- and listens to her music on low the entire way.

It’s a scenic drive and the roadways are clear. Most of the southron folk go further south when the cold snap comes, but not them. The northern people were kings of winter once, according to the history books, and the blood of the First Men still flowed through the veins of the Starks. Better that she likes the cold, Sansa thinks. When they come over a crest next, the white-capped mountains of her childhood jut out in the horizon and she knows the snow is not far off. The overwhelming feeling of _home_ washes over her at the sight, and she can’t resist reaching over to shake Jon awake. 

“Jon, _look._ ” It’s a clear day, and the wolfswood in the distance glistens with ice and fresh snow. Another four, five hours and they’ll be able to see the winter town and Winterfell beyond. “Isn’t it like something out of a movie?”

He sits up. “When’s the last time you were home?” 

“For Christmas? _Ages._ ” She dated Joffrey for two years and he wanted her in Casterly Rock with him for the holidays. It was the same story with Harry. Looking back, a warm winter felt wrong. She should’ve known better, but how could she? “You?”

“Over the summer… and last winter. Robb summoned me for Lyarra’s birth.”

“Did he send a raven? A letter written on parchment with ink?”

“More like an incoherent, sleep-deprived text message.” He laughs. “D’you remember when he wanting nothing more than to go hawking?”

“You _both_ did,” she reminded him, laughing. Her father indulged them -- Ned Stark and his brothers had grown up with a stable of horses and a rookery of birds -- and Robb discovered very quickly that dogs were his preferred animal. Jon seemed to fare better with birds, but not by much. Arya ended up the shining pupil, much to their father’s amusement. It was a fond memory nevertheless, for what came only a month later. Lady’s been gone for years now, she thinks, but Jon still has Ghost, and the rest of the kids have their furry companions, too. “That’s the same year we got the dogs.”

“Surely Grey Wind’s white around the muzzle by now.”

“And utterly tortured by Lyarra’s grabby hands.”

They switch seats at the next rest stop, and Jon insists that Sansa nap, but she’s too wired to try. She’s not very tired, besides, and the upcoming weekend of pretending to be utterly besotted by Jon has her nervous. Being devoted when she is not isn’t anything new to Sansa… her last two relationships fizzled out long before she called it quits… but she’s never really lied to her family before -- not about anything _serious,_ anyway -- and who knows what burden of proof she’ll be required to provide the Starks? She and Jon were hardly close growing up. He was older, and liked all the things Sansa didn’t. Over the years, as she discovered several months ago, the both of them did some growing up. His sullen brooding is gone, and her desire for everything to be _perfect_ and _pretty_ long disappeared, too. Instead, the days they spent tweaking the formula of their fake-relationship might’ve opened Sansa’s eyes to the fact that Jon Snow might actually be perfect for her. Handsome, brave, honest, kind. Not a true knight, like in those old romance books she loved so much, but real; better. A mild panic seizes her every time she thinks about it. Long ago, she took her feelings and crammed them into a tiny, tiny box and shoved it far and away. To be examined later or, more preferably, never.

They pull into the winter town for a tank of gas, and after another thirty minutes of driving, they arrive in Winterfell. The estate is just as grand as Sansa remembered: large wings to the east and west, a stone courtyard with winter roses in bloom. Waiting for them on the steps are her parents, whom she texted five minutes ago to announce her and Jon’s arrival. Bran and Rickon hover behind her parents.

“Mom, Dad,” Sansa says, rushing to greet them both with a hug. It’s good to see them again after so long; too long. She moves onto torturing her younger brothers with kisses and hugs. “You’re both so _big_ now!”

Rickon swipes the kiss she pressed to his cheek away with a scowl, and Bran returns her hugs with a fierce squeeze. When she turns around, Jon is shaking hands with her father and recounting their uneventful drive. It’s such a boyfriend-meets-dad moment Sansa has to smile, even if it’s not the real deal.

“Jon looks well,” her mother says. She’s watching Jon and Ned, too.

“He is.” She has to hold her tongue to keep from blurting out that he’s due for a promotion, that he’s enrolled in night classes and volunteers monthly at the local animal shelter; a compulsion to ensure that her partner is _good enough_ , especially after the disasters that were the last two. “What can I help with today?”

“Just settle in with Jon for now. I have you two in your old room --”

“My room?” Last she checked, her mattress  was a full. She was banking on her mother insisting she not stay in the same room with her boyfriend until it was _very serious_ \-- for both her and Jon’s sake. She flushes.

Catelyn laughs lightly. “Oh, Sansa. Your father and I don’t make Arya and Gendry sleep apart, so we won’t require it of you and Jon. I’m a ‘cool mom’ now.”

“The coolest,” she says with brittle cheer, and breaks away under the guise of helping with the luggage. 

She leads Jon inside without a word and tries to tell him ‘my mother expects us to sleep in the world’s smallest bed _’_ with her eyebrows. He does not pick up on her distress. Instead, they carry their things through the foyer and up the stairs wordlessly. 

Sansa opens the door to her room and ushers Jon inside. Not much has changed since high school… not that he would notice. He’s never been inside her room until now. A vanity with pictures taped around the mirror frame sits against the far wall, a scattering of old trinkets across the desk. Next to that a bay window overlooks the front yard and the snowy woods beyond. Everything else is pastel and soft lace, and she feels strangely vulnerable as Jon takes a look around once he sets his duffel bag on the floor.

Not for the first time Sansa wonders why Jon agreed to fake it with her. He’s standing in her childhood bedroom, in her childhood home, where, in truth, she was always nasty to him. He owes her absolutely nothing now and never has. He’s always been truthful, too. It can’t have been easy to go along with her desperate lie. The fact that he views her father _as_ a father figure and Robb as a brother probably doesn’t help either… and he’s getting nothing out of being her “boyfriend” except gratitude and a bottle of Arbor Gold she insisted was his.

“Very… cozy,” he says judiciously.

She scoots her bag over to the dresser. “You can laugh,” she says. She realizes just how ridiculous the room seems; a teenaged girl and her silly dreams. She’s just never had the heart to redecorate.

“No laughing. I just…” 

“Just?”

“I suppose I always imagined your walls splashed with boyband posters. Unicorns and kittens and things.”

“Imagined my bedroom, did you?”

He blushes. “A theoretical imagining. Winterfell was like a second home growing up... but this side of the place was a void of mystery.”

Something inside of her softens. “Sorry about the lack of posters,” she says, faux solemn. “Next time you come over I’ll be sure to have a few up. Do you prefer the unicorns or kittens?” 

“Kittens, of course.” He shrugs out of his jacket and lays it on her vanity bench. “So… where am I sleeping?” 

There must be a fair amount of horror on her face to telegraph what she verbally cannot, and she sees the moment he takes in the fact that they are stuck in here together for the next four days, too.

“I can ask my mom to put me somewhere else,” she blurts out in the same moment he spits out, “I can sleep on the floor.”

They share a look, and a laugh. 

“I’m not letting you sleep on the floor,” Sansa says. “The carpet’s nice, but. Not that nice.”

Jon eyes the bed. “Sam and I’ve shared a twin before,” he says after a moment.

“And we still have a few hours left to ignore the problem, so. Want to go downstairs and get a snack? I’m starving.”

She doesn’t realize until later, when they’re downstairs and Bran’s showing her sketches in his plant book, that she told Jon “next time.” Her stomach warms remembering her subconscious slip. She catches Jon’s gaze from across the room -- he’s holding Rickon upside down by the ankle, and the both of them are grinning and laughing -- and beats back the wave of mild panic that sweeps over her at the sight. That tiny, tiny box with the feelings? Not so easily forgotten; not with him being the best (fake) boyfriend she’s ever had. _Keep it together, Stark,_ she thinks.

Robb and Jeyne and little Lyarra arrive soon enough, and Arya and Gendry show up not long after. There’s a whole round of Robb giving her and Jon a hard time before he squeezes them tight around the shoulders and offers them his blessing.

Jon goes to mingle, Rickon darting between his legs all the while, and Sansa busies herself in the kitchen no matter how hard her mother tries to shoo her out. The big dinner isn’t until tomorrow night, with the rest of the guests arriving through the next afternoon, but there’s a massive pot roast in the oven and appetizers to make. Also, she may or may not be freaking out about Jon. 

The kitchen isn’t safe, however. Her mother gives her a look over a bowl of Sansa’s meringue for the eggnog and says, “You and Jon look happy.” 

Sansa swallows her groan. Why did she ever think this was a good idea? “We are,” she says. “But, um, Jon’s very private… so.” _Deflect, deflect._

“I’m not asking for a detailed summary, baby. Taste this--” She tips a spoonful of delicious Sauce into Sansa’s mouth. “--good? Good, good. Oh, Sansa… I just would like to know a little bit more about how _Jon Snow_ captured your heart. You two never… got on.”

_That’s putting it mildly._ Sansa folds the sugar into the whip. Gendry brought a bottle of rum for the spiced cider that she is desperately wanting a taste of now. “He’s --” She bites her lip. “He’s a good man, mom. Kind and sweet. Always treats me well. Funny, too… never thought I’d say that, the way he used to pout… and we never _got on_ because I was a teenaged brat, and. I’m glad he took a chance on me.”

Catelyn doesn’t say anything for a long moment. She simply stirs the pot of sauce. Then, “Sometimes love finds us later than we expect and in unusual circumstances.” 

“Love’s a touch strong…”

“Maybe so, but I see the way Jon looks at you. It’s only a matter of time before he says it in so many words,” she replies, all knowing. “Now, shoo! Leave your mother in peace and go see to your brothers and sister.” 

Sansa brings Gendry’s rum with her. It’s strong. Stronger than she would normally enjoy, but with her mother throwing words around like _love_ and _Jon,_ she needs it. It’s what she’s nursing, finally barred from kitchen duty, when she drags her sister off to the informal living room. “Since when does mom let you and Gendry sleep in the same room?” 

Arya raises an eyebrow. “Since I became a living, breathing adult?”

“Yes, but now Jon and I…” She motions vaguely.

“Jon and you?” 

“Are in my room.”

“ _Oh._ Yeah. Sorry. I should’ve mentioned mom’s ‘I’m chill with whatever’ phase.”

“Is it the grandkids, you think?”

“Who knows?”

She sighs. “Would it be telling if I tried to sleep in another room?”

“Oh, god. _Sansa._ No one here is _suspicious_ ,” Arya replies, clearly exasperated. “You’re acting like you’re living a rom-com and everyone’s holding up a microscope to you and Jon. It’s not like you’re some playboy millionaire who needs to marry someone in a snap before you get your trust fund money. No one cares that much. _You_ need to relax. There’s no reason for you to be so stressed. Unless…” Her eyes widen, then narrow. “You _like_ him.”

“ _No_ ,” Sansa hisses. 

“Yes, you do… otherwise you wouldn’t be--”

She pinches her sister’s arm. “We’re not having this discussion in the house.”

“Are you two talking about me?” It’s a man’s voice, and Sansa half-turns to see Robb squeezing in through the barely cracked door. 

“Not everything is about you, you know,” Arya says, and gives Sansa a look that screams _we are talking later._ It is a conversation Sansa will be avoiding as best she can. Forever, if possible.

The rest of the evening goes off without a hitch, barring the occasional glare Arya sends her way. Arya and Jon were always close growing up -- they looked similar enough, in fact, that people often mistook them for siblings -- and Arya’s one condition for not telling everyone in the family what Sansa was trying to do was that she not jerk Jon around. Things with his last girlfriend didn’t end well, Arya said. Promise you won’t hurt him. And Sansa did. She just didn’t realize at the time that the person whose feelings needed shielding was her own.

She’s not sure if it’s the holiday spirit or _what,_ but she’s been dying to see where her and Jon’s relationship would go if they let it… but all she can do is wait and suppress and feel terrible about it. She dragged Jon into a web of lies because she was petty and feeling desperate and honestly, sitting next to a bunch of single guys for an evening wouldn’t have been the _worst_ thing to happen to her. _I am a terrible person_ , she thinks, utterly miserable.

Jon finds her by the hearth, Grey Wind’s massive head resting on her feet. The rest of the family had long gone to bed in preparation of the day ahead, but she’s been carefully absent from her room…

“Is the ‘nog bad?” he asks. 

She tilts her head, a silent _what?_

“You take a sip,” he explains, “and grimace. You’ve done it twice now.” 

“It’s strong. And I might be warring with an internal crisis at the moment.”

“Do you want to share?” 

“Wouldn’t be very internal if I did.”

“Mm. Fair enough.”

They sit in silence for awhile, Sansa staring into the crackling fire and hating herself. Telling Jon before they’re forced to sleep in the same cramped bed would be a mercy, she thinks. “I never should have asked you to come here with me,” she says. “I mean, I know you were invited already. Hence the me asking you here _with me_ bit.”

“I can’t have been that bad tonight,” he jokes.

She shakes her head. “No, that’s --” She bites her lip, thinking. “The problem is that I-- I… I might have...” 

“Might have what, Sansa?”

Her heart is beating so fast and the confession is on the tip of her tongue, but the words feel impossible to get out. _I’ll tell him tomorrow_ , she decides. Procrastination is the coward’s way out, her grandfather always said so, but she can’t possibly tell him the truth right this moment. Winterfell feels impossibly large, and her terribly small -- her _bed_ terribly small. “I might have had a bit too much eggnog,” she says lamely, and tries not to read into how Jon seems to deflate right in front of her eyes.

 

-

 

Sharing the bed isn’t a chore, or half as horrible as Sansa thought it would be. They change separately and slip under the covers separately, and if Sansa concentrates very, very hard, she can almost pretend the strip of heat at her back is Lady and nothing more. She is tired enough that she settles into sleep quickly, thoughts of tomorrow’s dinner and her self-imposed promised confession far away.

The next morning, Jon is already out of bed when she wakes. In fact, it’s the sound of him brushing his teeth in the bathroom that wakes her. She scrubs at her face with a groan and sits up. She wasn’t lying entirely when she said the eggnog was hitting her hard last night. 

“Hungover?” Jon asks. He's wearing a white t-shirt and black basketball shorts, and Sansa swallows around the lump around her throat. 

“I just need some coffee,” she replies. “Mom doesn't usually put so much rum in the eggnog.”

“Pretty sure I saw Arya dump more in after the final _freshly_ grated nutmeg touches.” 

“That would explain it.”

They smile at one another and Sansa tries very hard not to think about the pure domesticity of it all -- that this _could_ , potentially, be one hundred percent real. Instead, she mentions she should get ready for the day. By the time she's done her hair and makeup, Jon’s already downstairs. He hands her a steaming cup of coffee when she comes into the kitchen, unprompted.

“Three sugars and a touch of cream,” he says.

“Just how I like it.”

“He better know that by now,” Robb says teasingly.

_Oh, right,_ she thinks, but she can't ever remember telling Jon how she takes her coffee . She gives Jon a grateful smile anyway, and before she can chicken out, dives in to give him a dry kiss on the cheek. The look of surprise on his face is absolutely worth it.

Breakfast is a raucous affair, completely reminiscent of Sansa’s childhood -- including the arrival of Theon Greyjoy, as if he could smell the pancakes and bacon from across town and decided to casually swing by. Sansa’s mom rolls her eyes when he bursts into the kitchen but sets him a plate at his old spot anyway.

Afterwards, Sansa and Jon are given the task of hanging the mistletoe around Winterfell and wrapping the garland along the bannister. It’s one of the few decorations that have been left for the kids to do, and it’s a change from Sansa’s usual dining room plate-setting. It doesn’t go past her notice that everyone’s been coupled up -- Gendry and Arya, Robb and Jeyne, and now Sansa and Jon. It warms something in her, but the warmth doesn’t last long. They have to wrangle the stepladder from the shed out back and it is freezing outside. 

Sansa stomps her boot-clad feet into the snow-covered cobblestone, hands jammed into her parka pockets as Jon fiddles with the rusty old lock. “It’s _cold_ ,” she says. Her teeth clatter together. What she really means to say is, “Hurry up.” 

“Complaining won’t make it unlock any faster.” 

“Just hit it with a hammer. It’s frozen solid by now, surely.”

Jon declines her suggestion of blunt force, and the lock clicks open before frostbite is able to take Sansa’s fingers. The shed itself is massive and filled wall-to-wall with gardening tools and the like. Sansa hasn’t the faintest clue as to where the “inside ladder” her mother insisted they use could be hiding, but Jon finds it immediately. Sansa grabs one end and he the other, and they haul it inside Winterfell together. 

It’s not a bad job, all told. Jon seems to know what he’s doing -- climbs right up the ladder with a bag of mistletoe over his shoulder and gets to work. Sansa, for her part, ensures his handiwork is straight and keeps a foot on the bottom rung for some semblance of safety.

“You’re very good at this,” she says.

Jon huffs a laugh. “Thanks. I hang the mistletoe every year.”

That would explain his precision, she thinks. How did she never notice? “Oh?”

“Yeah. For a decade now.” His eyebrows scrunch together. “And I've never actually kissed anyone under any of it.”

“I don't really think anyone _actually_ does that anymore,” she offers. To be fair, the last person she kissed under the mistletoe was Arya, on the cheek, when they were ten and seven. There were many pictures taken and placed in an album Arya refers darkly as For Future Blackmail. “And, I mean, if you wanted to… I _am_ right here.” She means for her words to be teasing -- like the kiss earlier this morning -- but she remembers her eggnog promise, and how she really wouldn’t mind kissing Jon for real at all. She looks up. _Tell him,_ she thinks. _Get it over with._ “Do you remember last night?”

Jon’s looking down at her, but he carefully doesn’t meet her eyes. She remembers how defeated he looked in front of the fireplace, the way he touched the small of her back before they ascended the steps to her room. She doesn’t know much about his contemporary relationships, but she remembers the handful of girlfriends he had in high school. She remembers how he looked after Val dumped him, sneaking sips of her father’s whiskey with Robb in the gazebo out back. She never told on them.

“Sansa…” He says her name slowly. “You don’t--” 

“I do.” She grips the ladder. “I’m not telling you anything until you’ve come down, though.” 

“Afraid I’m going to fling myself off to avoid a conversation?”

“I distinctly remember a summer where you literally grabbed a camping stove with your bare hands to get out of talking with my parents about your college plans.” 

“Fair enough,” he concedes after a long moment.

She swirls her index finger in the air. “Get to stepping!” 

Jon does, but when they’re finally face-to-face Sansa suddenly wishes he was back on the ladder. It would be ridiculous to ask him to go back up, of course it would (would it? It would, yes), but being so close… She tucks her hair behind her ears. “I lied,” she starts. “It wasn’t just the eggnog. Last night. I just -- didn’t want to make things awkward between us. Because I like you. I’ve _liked_ you. And I haven’t had the courage to tell you.”

The words pour forth: how she never thought of him _like that_ until they reconnected in King’s and started hanging out; that the little stories they came up with over coffee and Dornish take-out were the best part of her week, that her heart jumps and her stomach drops whenever she sees his name pop up on her phone. That the thought of them parting ways and dropping the dating charade after the holidays stress her out more than Joffrey’s mother ever did. She never asked for feelings. She specifically asked him to help her to _avoid_ catching feelings. But she couldn’t help it, falling for him like she did, and she doesn’t stop talking until Jon places his hands on her shoulders and ducks in to kiss her.

Of all the kisses Sansa’s had -- well, it’s not the best. She lifted her chin out of instinct and he went too low and her lower lip and chin get most of the attention, but the pure elation of being in Jon’s arms takes the moment above and beyond her expectations. She’s hot and cold and vibrating from happiness. She draws back for a breath and refuses to open her eyes, just grabs him by the fabric of his sweater and pulls him in for a proper kiss, bringing him three steps backwards with her. She knows exactly where to go.

When they finally break apart, Jon’s flushed and his already messy hair has been tugged free from his bun. “Wow,” he says. “Um -- I like you too, by the way. If the past fifteen minutes wasn’t clear enough. I wanted to verbalize… that. Yes.”

She grins, punch-drunk and festive. “It was either that, or you couldn’t think of any other way to stop me from monologuing.”

“Mm, or that. You were taking up a lot of my mistletoe time.” 

“You and your mistletoe. Speaking of…” She moved them under the archway where Jon hung the biggest sprig she’s ever seen, thinking that it was high time he broke his _never been kissed_ tradition; a follow-up to their awkward first kiss moment, the star on top of the tree. She kisses him again, unable to help herself. There’s still so much to talk about, so many things to think through. But there will be time for that. She’s sure of it. “Look up.”

 

* * *

 

 

**+1**

The dinner was a success, if draining. Case in point: Catelyn spent most of the night mediating between the northern families, but it was worth all the trouble. Tytos and Janos set aside their feud (for the holidays, at least), Sansa’s friend Jeyne Poole and Patrek seemed to hit it off immediately, and her grand scheme of bringing Jon and Sansa together worked. As she knew it would.

Truth be told, Jon Snow isn’t the man Catelyn envisioned for her daughter so many years ago, but there’s no denying that he is a _good man._ Honorable, kind, and leagues better than the two boyfriends Catelyn met. She knew it would only take a soft nudge to set them in the right direction… even if they took the path quite a bit sooner than she thought they would.

“Cat,” Ned says, planting a kiss at her temple before joining her at the sink with a towel to dry the fine dishware. “Don’t you think it’s time to let the kids figure things out on their own?”

“Maybe,” she concedes. “But where’s the fun in that?”


End file.
